Below is information on the newly submitted proposal to list a portion of
the RMP trumpeter swan population under the ESA. The science supports the
listing.
It is also interesting to note that this year on the Bear River NWR,
only the unit open to hunting has been flooded. The safe units have little
to no water and were not enhanced for wildlife. And they want us to believe
that the trumpeters will be safe if they migrate to Utah.


Trumpeter's Status May Entail Utah Hunt's Swan Song
Wednesday, August 23, 2000


BY JIM WOOLF
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

Two citizen groups asked the federal government Tuesday to use the
Endangered Species Act to protect a small group of trumpeter swans that
breed in the Greater Yellowstone area of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho.
If they are successful, heightened federal protection for these
beautiful white birds could end Utah's annual hunt for the relatively common
tundra swan -- a species so similar in appearance that hunters can't
distinguish them from trumpeters. A few of the rare trumpeter swans are shot
accidentally during the annual tundra swan hunt at the Bear River Migratory
Bird Refuge near Brigham City.
The 95-page petition to list the trumpeter swan as a threatened or
endangered species was submitted by The Fund for Animals and Biodiversity
Legal Foundation. Both groups opposed a decision earlier this month by the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to allow up to 10 of the rare trumpeter swans
to be killed during Utah's tundra swan hunt.
Tom Aldrich, waterfowl program coordinator for the Utah Division of
Wildlife Resources, said his agency has not yet taken an official position
on the proposal yet, but said the overall population of trumpeter swans
appears to be healthy and attempts to restore the birds in previously
occupied habitat are progressing slowly.
Biologists divide trumpeter swans into three groups: the Rocky Mountain
population; the Pacific population; and the Interior population found in the
Midwest.
This dispute involves part of the Rocky Mountain population of trumpeter
swans. The vast majority of the Rocky Mountain swans -- an estimated 3,000
birds -- breed in the mountains of western Canada and migrate to the
Yellowstone area during the winter. They join about 350 trumpeter swans that
remain in the Yellowstone region year-round.
Protection of the 350 breeding birds in the Yellowstone region is the
focus of Tuesday's petition.
"These are the remnants of birds that were driven to the brink of
extinction" in the United States, said Andrea Lococo, Rocky Mountain
coordinator for The Fund for Animals. These swans once were widespread in
this country, but most were eliminated in the 1800s by commercial hunting.
Lococo and other environmental advocates argue that the swan's natural
attempts to expand its range in the Rocky Mountains is limited by hunters
aiming at tundra swans. When the so-called "pioneers" are eliminated by
hunting, she said there is little hope the species will expand its range and
become firmly established.
Aldrich doubts hunting has much to do with the swan's limited range. He
notes that some trumpeter swans that have wandered into Utah in the past
have died from diseases, raising questions whether this is a safe area for
them.




Martha Jordan
marthaj at swansociety.org
www.swansociety.org